Mama's Musings

Book 'em - The Power of Slow

I am excited beyond measure. Amazon is already carrying my forthcoming book, The Power of Slow: 101 Ways to Save Time in Our 24/7 World, which is coming out October 27, my darling sister's birthday!! My publisher sent me the St. Martin's Press fall catalog a few days ago. I almost leapt into the UPS deliveryman's arms when he brought me the package. There it was on page 99 in black and white.

Wowza.

My kids looked at me quizzically when I told them it was available for sale.

"You mean you want other people to read it, too?"

Kids. Gotta love 'em!

[Slow News] Planning the Space in Between http://ping.fm/CwCEI

5 Random Things about the Universe

So five random things happened in the past twenty-four hours that tell me the Universe has something planned. You know the feeling? You might spend years thinking you're an aimless wanderer on the planet, and then, boom. You get an insight, or in my case, five, that amaze you, Universe-style.

Random Thing #1: The distribution center for my big-time-how-do-you-do New York publisher is located less than a mile from my house in Gordonsville, VA.

Random Thing #2: The very delivery guy who picked up my hand-edited manuscript crossed my path today in Munich at virtually the very same place I met him almost a month ago to send it off.

Random Thing #3: My Munich client was planning on attending a book-signing in California next week. The California author she wants to see happens to be my new client. My Munich client had no idea.

Random Thing #4: My new client introduced me to 'someone in Germany' who does book tour events. He is located miles from my house here.

Random Thing #5: The set next to the place where we were filming a cop show today got blown up. They needed to hire new talent and killed off a bunch of characters in one ka-boom.

Universe - I'm listening.

Honest to pete.

[Slow News] Music helps with memory http://ping.fm/xYKc0

[Slow News] Twitter leads to moral depravity? http://ping.fm/C5Fz8

Thank you all for your incredible encouragement. The public radio interview is being taped today and can be heard on www.sdpb.org - TBD.

Easter Break - Week 2

We're well into Week 2 of the kids' Easter holiday break and I have to say I'm sad it's going to be over soon. My kids have enjoyed the a-ma-zing weather and lack of schedule. We've woken up every morning and asked ourselves "What shall we do today?"

Jackson is writing song lyrics. Sophia is playing with a friend who dropped by out of the blue. Pizza is in the oven, and life is easy.

Ah, would that it were more often this way! 

Taxes - it's not who you know, it's what you know

It's tax season. And I thought I was being smart, filing my US taxes waaaaaaaay before deadline. I got all the paperwork together, got the right stamps, collected information for US citizens residing abroad - the whole shabang.

And then they sent me a tax bill. They ignored my carefully crafted letter explaining why I was exonerated from self-employment taxes. They even turned a cold shoulder to the certificate of coverage I managed to get from some nice people in Berlin who promised me I had everything I needed to finally, finally be in one tax system instead of straddling two.

Luckily, I only got bounced to three IRS representatives before I got to the right person who said she'll put my account 'on hold'. She's promised to write an inquiry and to keep Uncle Sam at bay until they've pulled my file, which might take thirty days.

Suspension of clarity ain't my strong suit. But at least they have nice classical music to listen to while they put you on hold!

Baby Steps to Miracles

Tragedy strikes when we least expect it. When life offers up lemons, what do you do? When I heard about Eileen de Oliveira's story, I just had to share it. I hope it inspires you and gives you hope, as it did me.

Just weeks after giving birth to two boys and a girl, Eileen de Oliveira's infant daughter died and one of the boys, Lucas, had cerebral palsy. Doctors said it was unlikely Lucas would crawl, let alone walk, before the age of three. To make matters worse, insurance was only willing to cover three 30 minute sessions a week. She was not about to accept the doctor’s prognosis and instinctively knew the insurance-approved therapy would be inadequate. As an entrepreneur with an unbeatable passion for her kids, Eileen took matters into her own hands.

Eileen learned about Intensive Pediatric Therapy, using state-of-the-art therapy techniques such as TheraSuit Method™ along with more traditional therapy methods in order to achieve rapid strides in physical strength and coordination. At the core, they are compressing 7 ½ months of traditional therapy into 3 “intensive” weeks. Not only did this have a profound effect on Lucas, but Eileen saw the potential to expand the reach to children nationwide.

This sparked the birth of two organizations:

Therapies 4 Kids harnesses the Intensive Suit Therapy featuring the TheraSuit Method™ and Intensive Pediatric Therapy in therapeutic centers in Lauderdale by the Sea, FL, Parsippany, NJ, Irvine, CA and Madison, WI.  Additional facilities will soon open on Long Island, NY and Tampa, FL.

Bright Steps Forward is a 501c non-profit organization, based in Lauderdale by the Sea, FL., with a nationwide network of cooperating facilities. It provides intensive pediatric therapy to the children of parents who receive a grant for treatment based on financial need.

Children with cerebral palsy, developmental delays, autism and traumatic birth injuries, among other tragedies, make progress every day because Eileen was determined to find a way to help her own son.

If you need help, visit these sites. Share them with friends. Get the support you need. May you be inspired by Eileen and Lucas' fighting spirits and encouraged to live the life of your dreams with lemonade in hand!

 

Boredom Buster - Reader Tip from South Dakota

Whoever said social networking was a waste of time didn't have fabulous people in their network like I do. South Dakota public radio pal Gary Ellenbolt read my Twitter feed about my kids who are bored two days into their two-week Easter break. He emailed me the best boredom buster tip ever. It's called DX-ing. All you need are a few bored kids and an AM transmitter radio.

Because we don't have AM radio here, I thought I'd share the love with you. And you better believe when we road-trip in the US this summer, we'll be 'DX-ing' across the country. Gary writes:

Grab a radio (car radios are great for this, since the antennas outside, but it can be done indoors), and flip through the AM dial to find what stations and cities you pull in.  You can turn it into a geography lesson by finding the communities on a map.  I don't know the rules in Europe, but in the US, we have to give a station I-D as close to the top of the hour as possible (or the first natural break in the programming); but station location may not be that difficult anyway.

It actually works better in the evening or night (the ionosphere is thinner and the waves travel a grater distance, and I could get really technical here) but bedtime may be an issue.

South Dakota is a DX-ers paradise--I've picked up stations from Toronto to Salt Lake City, and south to San Antonio.

Some stations will even send "confirmation cards" if a person can send enough information as to when they were listening and what they heard. 

So for all you radio lovers out there with bored kids over Spring Break, give it a try. Then let me know what you find out!